23: Explosion
Katniss POV
I see a figure emerge from the woods out of the corner of my vision and turn my head quickly. It can only be Beetee or Johanna. If one is here, the other probably isn't far behind. Is this an attack? Could it be anything else? No. They aren't my allies anymore. They're just tributes, people who need to die.
"Haymitch, Finnick," I whisper. "Look over there. To your left."
They look up and I subtly gesture towards the figure. It comes slightly closer and I recognise him now. Beetee. Where's Johanna? I nock an arrow and point it towards him. I'm so close to victory. I can't afford to have mercy now- I have to shoot him. As soon as he gets within the accurate range.
Suddenly, I fall to the floor with the weight of another tribute. Turning my neck around, I see Finnick's face and as I follow his arm, his trident. He holds my own arm down to the floor. No. He's going to kill me. This is betrayal. I try to kick at his stomach as hard as I can, but he moves his weight onto my legs.
My elbow catches him in the ribs and Haymitch's words come into my mind. An elbow strike causes more damage than a punch or slap. I get the satisfaction of seeing Finnick wince in pain, but he doesn't fall off me. He still has my arm trapped underneath his. Why did he risk himself for me if he'll just kill me?
Where's Haymitch? Why is he letting this happen? Wait, he's across the cornucopia- is that my bow and arrow he's holding? He passes it to Beetee. What? All of my allies are traitors? Was this arranged with Snow outside the arena? I'm going to die a slow and painful death on camera.
"Just kill me if that's what you're going to do," I order Finnick, trying not to sound nervous. I won't disappoint the rebels by dying screaming and crying and begging for mercy. I won't give Snow that satisfaction. I won't give Prim those nightmares. "Or is that not what you plan on doing? Traitor."
The trident slams down into my wrist and pain explodes through it. This is the worst wound that I've ever had, it feels like the wound it burning and stinging. The trident twists and pulls out and despite my promises to myself, I give a long scream. Finnick's hand reaches into the wound. What's he trying to do?
The blood drips and oozes from the wound onto the sand. How long will it be before I bleed out? Why aren't the others fighting? Finnick is a bigger threat than I am. Why has nobody killed Beetee yet and what is he doing here? I hear a sound that seems out of place.
Then I see a single arrow fly with a silver tail behind it. Did Beetee shoot that? Why? The sky lights up for a second and then there is a blinding explosion across the sky. I cram my eyes shut. This is the end. I won't be going back to Gale. Finnick will kill me here or else I'll die of blood loss.
There are loud noises. I've heard things like this before. Shooting, isn't it? And hovercrafts? Or am I just going crazy? I open my eyes a slit. No. There are hovercrafts here, but no shooting. People wearing white armour descend from a ladder and surround the area. What are they doing here?
One of them puts his arms under my shoulders and hoists me up; another grabs me feet and they pull me into the hovercraft. Are these from the Capitol? From the rebellion? Somewhere else? I can see the arena as we rise- the other tributes look like dots from up here. The twelve sections of the arena stretch out beneath me.
Then I am pulled up into the hovercraft and one of the men sticks a needle into my neck. He presses down on a plunger and I feel a liquid being injected into my artery. The world goes fuzzy for a second and I have difficulty switching focus and moving. "Who are you?" I whisper before falling backwards. No answer.
xXx-X-xXx
Johanna POV
As the electricity flows through the wire, the entire sky lights up. I cling to my axe. The hovercrafts will come soon. Maybe Katniss and the others will be out already. The revolution they've all been talking about is finally going to happen and I'll be able to fight in a real battle, not this mockery.
I wonder how much of this the people in the Capitol and in the Districts have seen. How quickly did they cut the cameras broadcasting the Games? Probably pretty fast. They can't afford to let people know that they aren't fucking invincible. Because they aren't. Sometime soon, I'm going to be splitting Snow's head open with my axe.
The blood will spurt out, and maybe some brains and there'll be that satisfying click when it breaks through his skull. He'll probably twitch for a second and then I'll yank the axe out and he'll fall to the floor in front of thousands of people. Maybe they'll have a cannon go off as he dies. That will be a nice touch.
There is the sound of shooting coming from nearby. I can't see through the wreckage which used to be the force field, but I know that it must be District Thirteen and the Capitol. Please let Thirteen win. Then an explosion that causes my ears to ring and all of the branches of the trees to vibrate.
A single figure descends from above. "Johanna Mason," he calls. "I'm Soldier Taylor. Are you injured?" I shake my head and tread a bit closer towards him. "Grab the ladder," he orders. "We'll have the rest out quickly, our hovercraft is going to the cornucopia to pick them up now."
I clutch the rungs and an electric current goes through my arms, causing my muscles to clench around the ladder. They're not taking any chances that I'll fall. The ladder is pulled back into the hovercraft and I climb up inside. The hatch closes behind me and I look around.
It's fairly plain, all metal with no colour. I've been told that District Thirteen dislike anything that isn't strictly necessary, I can see by the state of this hovercraft that that's true. Soldier Taylor is staring at me. He seems young, a bit younger than me at a guess. Looks a bit weedy.
"What was the explosion a few minutes back?"
"That was a Capitol hovercraft. Trying to intercept us- they got here faster than we expected. We were hoping that this would be a clean extraction, but unfortunately not."
"And how do you know that they won't intercept the others?"
"We don't know for sure." He pauses. "You are injured Miss Mason. The infirmary is this way."
Injured? When did I get injured? I look down over my body and notice some wounds on my legs. Oh yes, when we killed the careers earlier. I had forgotten about those cuts. Enobaria was vicious. Taylor has already started moving and I follow him. He'll probably start to bug me if I don't.
The infirmary has five empty beds with a few people I assume are doctors buzzing around. They crowd me as I come in. Part of me wants to go axe crazy on them. I never liked being crowded, even less so after my Games. They push me down onto one of the beds and start to examine the wound.
One of them fills a syringe with a clear liquid and injects in into my leg. The area quickly goes numb. It'll be hard to get out now if I have to run. Another doctor cleans the wound out and takes out some sort of machine. He clamps it over my wound and pushes down. When he removes it, a staple holds the edges of the wound together.
He repeats the process a few times and then wraps a bandage around the wound fairly tightly. For a moment, I get a flashback to the Capitol doctors treating my wounds after I won my Games. They were similar to this, not talking to me, just sewing up and binding the wounds.
"You should stay in bed for the rest of the journey to Thirteen," one of the doctors speaks for the first time. "Rest. You've had a difficult time in the Games."
Soldier Taylor comes into the room again and collects the axe I used. I don't like him taking it. After it saved my life several times during the Games, I feel naked without it. "No weapons are allowed in here," he says. "I should have taken it before. You will not be allowed weapons until after you pass psychological evaluation."
Oh. They want to make sure I'm not insane before trusting me with weapons. Makes sense. That said, I've had weapons all through the Games and haven't attacked anybody that I wasn't allowed to. Same can't be said for Finnick, who Thirteen love for some reason. He punched the mockingjay in the face because his old mentor died. Chaff died in the bloodbath, but I didn't start hitting people.
"Because my keeping sane throughout two Hunger Games and getting out alive wasn't proof enough of my sanity already?" I ask, taunting him.
"You aren't special Miss Mason. Everyone must pass these tests before being allowed weapons, and besides, it is likely that you could have sustained some psychological damage during the Games."
Like Annie Cresta. We've been travelling for around half an hour now, they should have the others. Wonder if Haymitch has started drinking again. Maybe the mentors are already in District Thirteen, there was a plan for them to escape too, wasn't there? I'm sure Harriet was capable of shooting a few peacekeepers and getting out. Easy compared to the Games.
"Talking about the Games, do you have the rest of the tributes now? Haymitch and Katniss and Beetee and Finnick?" I demand. "Where are they?"
Taylor seems to squirm under my gaze and panic fills me. Could the plan have failed because the girl on fire couldn't even get herself out of the arena with help from Thirteen? We need her for the rebellion, little as I respect her as person. She's much, much blander than I expected the symbol of the rebellion to be. The mockingjay.
"They were taken by the Capitol. I'm sorry Miss Mason. I'm sure you became close to them in the Games."
"Ha. They were my allies, I wasn't close to them. I don't get close to people. We just needed them to have a successful uprising, that's all. If they torture them, they might get some valuable information. But I wasn't close to them. No."
"If you say so," he mutters. "We arrive in Thirteen in an hour. Your mentors should arrive shortly after us."
"If your pilots aren't so incompetent that they manage to lose the other symbol of the rebellion," I say.
He glares at me. "If you know enough about flying hovercrafts to successfully extract tributes from an arena before others who are closer and with better technology find them, please do tell. You'll be a great help to the cause," he says sarcastically. "Goodbye Miss Mason. I will probably see you when we arrive in Thirteen."
He exits the room, leaving me nothing to do but stare at the ceiling- plain metal- and stew in my thoughts. I suppose I can't blame this on Everdeen seeing as she knew nothing about the plan- something which I clearly remember objecting to greatly. If she's the centre of a plan, she ought to know about it.
But no. Need-know basis, and apparently being the one person who actually matters to them doesn't count as somebody who needs to know. Perhaps if they had told her, she would be on the hovercraft with me at this moment, instead of imprisoned god knows where in the Capitol.